Transcriber: Akinori Oyama Reviewer: Asia Lindsay
I want us to talk or think a bit about
what is at the heart of what we do,
which is getting a speaker
and somehow getting something great out of them.
How on earth does that happen?
I think the start point on this is just to remember
how extraordinary a thing it is that a talk works.
Think about it.
You have a person with a brain and an idea
that no one else in the world has, maybe.
What is that thing?
It's some little unique pattern in their brain, right?
And somehow, they open their mouth like this.
Sound waves go out, through the ears of people in the audience
and, by some miracle, maybe, at the end of 18 minutes,
each of those brains has the same pattern in it.
This is astonishing.
It's truly astonishing that this can happen at all.
It doesn't happen in any other species in the same way, as far as we know.
There are a lots of ways in which this astonishing process can go wrong.
And, that's when talks fail.
How is it that a receiving brain can be rewired?
That brain may, as a result of that talk,
be different for the rest of its biological life.
We're giving someone a new world view
that 30 years later might make them
think differently, might make them act differently.
How on earth can that happen?
The way the brain works is step by step, incrementally.
You can't take a complex set of memes, a big knot
and just drop it into a brain and the brain goes, "Thank you!"
and we are done.
It doesn't work that way.
There are a lots of models that I find helpful
and sometimes I think a TED Talk is like playing Tetris with the brain.
All these ideas are coming in,
you're desperately trying to flip them into the right location
so they just slot and land somewhere where they will be received.
What would happen if you wanted to persuade
a bunch of people to come with you on a journey?
What are the two things you need to do?
You've got to start where they are,
and you've got to give them a reason to come with you.
I saw a great example of that in rehearsal just now.
There was a speaker there, Sonia Shah.
She was giving a talk about malaria.
Malaria isn't actually where everyone is right now.
For a lot of people, if you say malaria, they go,
"Oh, God. I suppose I'd better listen."
It's not what people are. It's not where they want to go.
So, she didn't start by saying,
"Ok. Let's get into malaria. Honestly, world, we have to fix this problem."
She said, "I'm going to tell you something that might surprise you.
Since the stone age,
more than half of the deaths of humans have been from one disease."
Boom!
Everyone is suddenly interested. Everyone cares about that.
So, she found the start point, the rallying cry,
"Come on! Let's go on this journey, together!"
So, let's think about the journey and how that happens.
The first part is that journeys happen step by step.
If you can't see the next step, you can't go on the journey.
So, let's think about that seeing.
Often, people in a talk feel like they are surrounded by fog.
They can't see. They can't see the moment.
What generates that fog?
Often it's language which doesn't land for you.
It's conceptual language.
It's language which makes sense in the context of speaker's world view
but it isn't where the people are.
So, if you want to build a concept, you have to build it step by step.
You have to use accessible language. You have to avoid jargon.
And, you have to give examples.
Bryan Stevenson, in his classic talk. It was so powerful.
He made this amazing conceptual statement
that blew up everyone's minds.
He said, "In many parts of the world, poverty is not the opposite of wealth.
It is the opposite of justice."
Those words landed like a bomb in people's brains.
They only landed that way because he had set it up.
He'd told stories about injustice and poverty,
and showed the relationship between them,
and then suddenly boom, gave a conceptual statement that landed.
But, it was built from the ground up, one step at a time.
Talks can't advance difficult ideas without populating them
with these rich examples that make sense to us
that allow our brains to use analogy, to absorb them and put them in place.
And, that means there is actually only a limited number of steps you can take
in an 18 minute talk.
The fog has to be cleared from it.
One of the biggest tragedies that can go wrong with a talk
is that speakers can try and go on too far a journey,
they put out all those stepping stones, without space between them,
allowing the audience to have a chance to make those leaps.
Without the examples, people would be left behind.
You think you've taken someone across this sweeping breadth of knowledge,
you've actually left them right where they started.
It's a tragedy.
The very first thing that has to be done with a talk is to buy into that idea of
"Ok. I can't do everything in 18 minutes. I need to pick a journey."
We can walk a mile in 18 minutes, right? We can't walk 10 miles.
So, pick a mile, but make it an interesting mile
a mile that takes you somewhere great,
and then make every little step on the way interesting.
What else can go wrong in this journey?
People might be able to see the next step,
but they might not want to go there with you.
Why might they not want that?
They might decide they don't like you.
So, we have a lot of pieces in this TED guide.
Commandments, and rules and whatever that we throw out
that actually go to this.
The reason why we say, too much ego on stage is a bad thing
is precisely for this reason.
If someone comes over as a blow-hard,
or is really trying to make themselves sound important,
there is an instant, natural human reaction of,
"Really? I don't like that." We don't like that.
We don't like arrogance. We don't like ego.
So, we start to shut down, the willingness to make the step goes.
The opposite of that is vulnerability and the power of speakers
who are willing to say, "I'm taking a risk here.
I am actually feeling kind of shy and nervous,
and frankly, I may be screwing up here.
But this really matters to me. Please will you come with me?"
and the audience says, "Yes. We're with you."
and they come.
Talks in a theater like this, on this sort of scale,
they work on that level, that human connection level.
Orating, which you have to do for maybe a bigger crowd,
is a completely different biological phenomenon.
It doesn't really work in theater, or indeed on a TED video.
Here, it's people in your living room.
It's chatting human to human and finding that human connection.
It matters so much in making people want to come the next step with you.
That's why eye contact matters.
With eye contact, you feel like you can see into me,
you can feel like you can make a judgment,
whether I really mean this, or if I'm bullshitting you.
And, it helps you decide, do I want to be on this journey with this person?
Humor.
Humor is the ultimate, "Come on, we are going to keep going."
If you are going to on a long walk with someone who can tell great jokes,
you are totally up for it.
It really makes you want to be part of that.
Humor is hard to do right, not many people can,
it won't have escaped your attention
that many of the best TEDTalks have been fueled by humor,
seduced the audience.
I mean, education - honestly, who wants to talk about education typically?
Ken Robinson found this way
of making it the most delicious, delightful, charming, wonderful experience.
He seduced everyone along the journey with him.
Everyone was in love with him well before he got to the core ideas
that really opened people's minds and made them want to
change their lives, and commit to education reform etc.
Humor can't be forced, and not everyone can do it,
but what everyone can do is connect as a human being,
be themselves, be authentic.
So, it's the journey. It's scoping the extent of it,
and not trying to do too much, then taking people every step of the way.
What are the natures of some of those journeys?
There are different words we can give them.
Sometimes, a good word for a journey is just a story,
and a lot of talks are basically someone telling a remarkable story
from which there are takeaways.
This is a very profound and deep human experience
and our brains know how to do this.
They know how to start with the narrative, and just continue.
That is exactly what's happening.
But there are other journeys that tap into some of that same process.
You can go on a journey of discovery.
You reveal something, then, naturally, you reveal something else
and that leads to something else.
It feels like you are on this journey and every step feels natural.
You have anticipation about what the next step is going to be.
Or, it can be a journey of persuasion.
If you want to get a fantastic example of that,
look at Dan Pallota's talk from the last TED
where he set out to change for all time everyone's view of the non-profit world.
He just went through it step by step, making these arguments one at a time
that just seemed more and more compelling,
a beautiful interaction with the visuals when needed,
his own story telling, his own logic - a fantastic journey of persuasion.
A lot of the most interesting talks almost have the structure of the detective story.
So, it's a story, but it starts with a riddle.
It might be a question like as simple as,
"How on earth do we solve climate change?" or some problem.
You start with some issue that you think will intrigue people.
"I want to share with you how I learned
everything I thought I knew about stress is dead wrong."
There is a talk like that this week.
Then you take people on, you show them the clues,
you show them the moment of: "Aha!", or revelation, perhaps.
Doing that you are giving all those receiving brains the chance
to do something very human and natural, just put the pieces together,
clue, clue, clue, conclusion.
Wow! I get it! Mind reset, re-snapped.
You know, we talk a lot at TED, or people talk a lot
about inspiration and the importance of that in talks.
This is a topic where we have to be really careful because inspiration
is one of those things that you don't get by targeting directly.
A speaker who comes to you and says, "I can deliver an inspiring talk." Run!
It's the last thing you want.
Inspiration comes when an audience sees that someone is being authentic,
when they see that someone has expanded
their own sense of possibility in the world.
People who try and say,
"And, now is the moment, where you, yes you, can get out of your chair
and change your life. We can all do this together, can't we?"
We've all seen those talks now and we're all, honestly, tired of them.
We feel, when we hear them, we are being manipulated.
Those kinds of talks can have this massive push-back reaction,
and it turns out there are hundreds of people out there
who have been inspired by TED, and want to be that person
strutting the stage and delivering that inspiration.
There's a lot of pressure on you, as organizers,
to book them and put them on. Be careful.
People think that they have cracked the code of TED when they think emotion.
You know, a talk has to be emotional.
And, that's absolutely true. Emotion really matters.
But again, please not directly.
Don't go, "Ok. This is the moment when I am going to make the audience cry."
And, you slip out of your pocket the picture of your granddaughter,
or your sister, and describe her terrible disease or her whatever.
Don't do that. It's too familiar now.
A few people have done that and got away with it,
but it feels manipulative now.
The single thing that matters most in all this
is that someone actually does have something to say.
That there is a realistic journey that you can take someone on
in 6, 12, or 18 minutes, that actually is fresh and matters.
Absent of that, there is no chance of the talk landing anyway.
So, that is the single hardest thing to do.
Is this person really a leader in this field?
Do they really have an idea that the world needs to know about?
And have they found the way to make it accessible?
Is this idea or the scope of their work possible to fit into 18 minutes?
And, if not, what is the angle?
What is the piece of it that is realistic?
This is where speakers need help because a lot of them can't do it.
It takes being almost like a journalist
looking at the outside, listening to them, saying,
"Talk to me about your stuff.
I want to figure out what the story is here.
What's the story? Tell me about that.
Is that interesting? People already know that.
That is interesting! I have never heard that before.
Ok. Let's make that the talk."
One thing that can be really helpful is to encourage people to think of the headline.
What's the talk headline before you start?
"Some thoughts on 3D printing", is not a talk.
"The key development in 3D printing that is going to change health care."
That's a talk. It's an angle.
So, finding that piece and then people know the direction
that they are going to go through there, and make it happen.
Typically in an 18 minute talk trying to give
more than three big examples of something is pretty hard.
A few people can do it and there are exceptions to every rule.
But, often, the absolute key is just saying, less is more.
Strip that out so that you can go into these things in more detail.
Because what's tragic - one thing I really want to avoid with TED
is ideas being conveyed lightly, without the substance,
without the real reasons why this is so and why you should believe it.
You can't give the book in 18 minutes, but you can take a couple of things,
and unpack them and really make them believable and understandable.
That's all I have to say right now except for this one thing:
there is no formula.
There is no formula to a TED talk. Never let anyone say that.
Above all, we want people to be original. To be themselves.
We want them to own their talk.
Any guidance you give people comes tempered with,
"This is you. This is about your passion.
We want you to do it the way you know best. Make it yours."
And, if people do that,
there is a real chance that some piece of magic will happen
and audience minds will light up and be changed forever.
(Applause)
Rives: Thank you, Chris. So, we have time for a Q&A.
I've got a microphone on either side. If you'd like to ask a question,
hold up your hand, and we'll get you a microphone.
While we are doing that, I would like to ask you a first question.
This is sort of an open show - Kelly and I always tell the organizers
where we are at and why we are doing something.
You've just come from speaker rehearsal.
How's TEDGlobal 2013 going?
Chris Anderson: (Chuckles) It's extremely exciting.
The substance in these talks this week is off the charts. It's great.
These are not light topics.
We are talking this week about the issues that matter most in the world.
It is just like inequality, corruption,
all manners of interesting technological chances.
But, the speakers are in-deep.
I've already been in rehearsal,
shedding tears, and wowed, and all those things.
It has been really wonderful.
R: Let's keep the questions and the answers brief
so we can maximize their number.
Who's our first questioner? Go for it, Stephan.
Stephan: Chris, you touched on the topic
of fake science and also these motivational speakers.
Because what we've seen in the last two years now
that we have more and more people in Tony Robbins' style approaching us,
they want to give an inspiring talk and it seems,
if there is an explosion of coaching in the world, but, at least I can say.
R: What's the question? Question has a question mark at the end. Go Stephan.
Stephan: How to handle this
and what do you recommend because we don't want these talks?
CA: Mostly just say, "No." (Laughter)
We are not interested in inspiring talks, we are interested in minds being shifted.
What is the core idea that you have that is fresh and unique to you?
If they can't answer that, run!
R: If you're watching on live stream, you can also type in a question.
Do we have a microphone here? Go for it.
Person: Hi, Chris. With the speaker coaching,
where do you draw the line
between getting the speaker to be really authentic and getting his story across
versus coaching him and maybe over-coaching him
and losing that kind of idea?
Is there a magic line between how to do that?
CA: All of the coaching should be towards making the speaker authentic.
What goes wrong with speakers is that they go into speaking mode
and the two types of modes that that can be often
is memorization mode - "I'm stressed. I've memorized my talk,
and I am going to go on with the next sentence now",
and they forget that there is an audience in the room.
So, there is this thing that I call the awkward valley,
someone who wanted to memorize the talk, but isn't fully comfortable with it.
And, they feel stressed and it just doesn't sound human,
and you have to help them find the mode of speaking.
For example, your cousin who you haven't seen for 2 years is in the 2nd row,
your only job is to share with him
what you have been doing the last couple of years you are passionate about
and just to do it in a normal way.
We've had this in rehearsal this morning. There was speaker going,
"If this was the case...", they were stressed and they were kind of going on,
and then, we got them by the end of the rehearsal,
just to be, "This is so cool."
This really matters, the smile and connect.
So, I don't think there is a contradiction there.
In general, there is not a contradiction.
R: OK. We will go to Niki.
Niki: Very short question, speaker rehearsal.
Very good story, very interesting talk, God-awful delivery.
Question mark.
(Laughter)
CA: I'd rather have substance than perfect delivery.
So, it's ok. But most people can be encouraged to get comfortable.
One thing that can help is to record them
and let them see what that looks like, and try and find the moment in their talk
where they got into the right voice.
And, say, "Be more like that."
We had that at Long Beach this year.
There was a speaker who was terribly fast, stressed and high-pitched,
but she came into a low, much more connecting
like where we could point to the specific point and say "Do that",
and the talk was transformed.
So, it's worth trying to get both.
R: Did you have a moment in your speaking experience when you realized
I've got to change what I am doing?
It seems like you have changed a bit on stage from 2005 to now.
CA: Not a moment.
Frankly, I am still kind of rubbish compared with the pros,
but it's just seeing a lot and seeing the nuances in the different voices
and seeing what connects. It has been really interesting.
I learn something every year.
R: If you have question, hold up your hand, we'll get you a microphone.
Do we have an online question, yet? Ok, great. Then, let's go here.
Person: So, every talk being unique,
how do you stitch them together into a coherent program?
CA: Great question. Again, no formula on that.
But, think journey as well, think where people start.
So, start where people are.
People coming from a busy work life.
That's not the moment to hit them with the big inspirational talk.
Start with, "Hey, let's find out some interesting facts about the world."
So that the speaker with the demographic talk,
or the overview of what's happening in the world
or some specific, broader talk, start there.
Keep varying between, don't have too many talks
that all go to the same part of the brain.
Think of the brain as a muscle.
If you have analytical talks
or, inspirational talks, one after another,
that part of the brain gets exhausted.
You hit a fatigue level. Mix it up.
The reason why TED works is that we bring in these beautiful pieces
of aesthetic beauty, the music, the visual talks.
And, your brain that's been thinking, suddenly goes, "Ah",
and it opens up, and lets the next talk in. So, move it around.
Usually, the more personal storytelling and inspirational stuff
comes better at the end.
But, not in one big block.
Don't have a session on analysis in business and issues,
and then a session on storytelling and inspiration.
No. Mix those things up.
R: Got it. With 50 seconds left on the clock,
we have time for one more question and answer.
What's your question?
Person: Chris, I tried to quote you to my team this year
something you said under your breath about a year or so at TEDGlobal,
"The best talk is when a speaker gives a part of himself away",
and I need to bring that home, the quotation, I just... Do you remember?
CA: I think it goes to vulnerability, the authenticity and vulnerability,
a speaker who understands that this really matters.
And, the audience feels that and feels that they are taking risks
that matters to them enough that they are willing to do that.
Rives: Ladies and gentlemen, TED curator, Chris Anderson.
Thank you very much. CA: Thanks. Thank you!
(Applause)